When in Cornwall....

Be sure to visit St Michael's Mount

But keep an eye on the tide..

for the ignorant will be surely caught out

and it's a wet wet walk home...

and suddenly the end of the world will seem a comfort

You know you are in trouble in Cornwall

When the forecast is ....

and even the birds don't fly...

but young lads do.

Practice some surf life saving (I hope that's a 5mm wetsuit he is wearing)

or visit the Tate Gallery and a Martin Creed exhibition with 13,000 balloons

with some strangers.

Spot the difference

A glorious summers day in Cornwall. Ambient air temperature 28.2 degrees. Turquoise coloured water and outrigger canoes getting readied for their launch

The next day. Ambient air temperature 18.5 degrees. Misty and drizzling.

Both beautiful days in their own right. 

New balls please....

It's a well known fact the English love to queue for anything.  You can imagine then the delight that avid queuers in England feel when Wimbledon tennis rolls around. They get a legitimate excuse to stand in what may truly be one of the longest queue's in global sport. That is ''The Queue'' to get into Wimbledon to watch tennis on any given day.

Here is how it works, and I should know because I did it today as time is my ally.

If you want to get to see the tennis you have to

1. Belong to a tennis club affiliated with the British Tennis Association and when that club receives its quota of Wimbledon tickets from the Lawn Tennis Association you enter a ballot.

2. Actually be a member of Wimbledon Lawn tennis and Croquet Club. Good luck.

3. Know a FX broker or similar who can afford to pay up for a debenture ticket or corporate package for you. Good luck.

4. Pay up yourself for a corporate package. Avoid GO, do not collect your $200, and head straight to personal bankruptcy.

5. Enter the public ballot run by Wimbledon for allocation of tickets on any given day of the fortnight. Good luck.

6..Join ''The Queue'' for public admission on the day (or before) and take your chance at being close enough to the front of the line to get a ticket for any of the 4 show courts (Centre court, no.1 , no.2 , no.3)

I did 6.

Left home at 5.25am. Joined end of the queue at 5.47am. I was given a card designating me as queuer (not queerer) no.1096. yes. 1,095 people in front of me and it was only 5.47am. A lot of these folk had camped out the night before. As sad as I thought they were, there was actually a group of 5 Swiss setting up camp at 6am to start the queue for tomorrow so they could ensure they would be getting tickets for Centre Court to watch Roger Federer. Yes, that's right. Start a queue at 6 am on a Wednesday to get tickets to watch a game at 2 pm on Thursday. 

'The Queue at 5.47am'

Overnight queuers

Up against the fence the Swiss begin their new queue for a 36 hours wait

6.30am -The overnight campers are instructed to fold away tents and bags and we are all ordered to tighten ''The Queue'' up. Befriend an old lady who is 1,095 who does this every day for the first week of every Wimbledon.

7.30am '-'TheQueue'' starts to move forward. At this stage we are 800 yards from Wimbledon tennis centre.

8.30am -They start to hand out night club admittance type bands (well that's what the 19 year old in front of me told me they looked like) to correspond with the court you wish to sit in. Generally on any given day they have 500 tickets for the public for each of the show courts and 15,000 general admission tickets that get you outside court access. So if you are one of the first 500 in the queue then you would get to go to Centre Court. The next 500 get no.1 court. Etc, etc...Don't ask then why at 1,096 I managed to get a no.1 court wrist band entitling me to purchase a ticket for no.1 court. Especially as Andy Murray was playing no.1 today. But I did.

9.00am - Pass through airport like security screening. 

9.57am -Purchase ticket at gate no.3 by validating my position in the queue with wristband and enter complex. Nice little 4 hour 10 min wait that one!

10.01am -Join another 200 man long queue to access toilets.

10.15am -Join another 50 man queue to get coffee and overpriced breakfast 

11.20am -Watch in despair as clouds open and it starts to belt with rain. 

11.22am- Listen to ground announcer inform you and your closest 27,000 newly acquired friends that tennis on all courts except Centre Court (it has a roof) is postponed until further notice and commencement of play will be unlikely until after 3pm. Oh, giddy up. I got out of bed at 5am for this?

2.00pm - Queue for lunch and return to ''Henman Hill'' to watch progress on centre court on large oversized TV screen. (Its about the size of a small flat). Befriend two travelling middle aged Arizonians who tell me that Obama is the devil incarnate.

3.01pm Watch the players come out onto Court 1 and begin battle. T.Bedrych (last years finalist)versus some journeyman. Followed by Andrew '' I'm the most miserable sport millionaire in the world, which also happens to owe me''(the world that is) Murray. He plays an equally anonymous journey man and wins in straight sets, celebrating with the enthusiasm of someone sucking a ripe lemon. I then pass on watching a British woman get beat up by someone whose surname ends in '..ova'' so Im guessing another Russian. 

7.30pm I head to the ''re-sell'' counter where people who have been in Centre Court to watch the premier match of Nadal v someone, have decided they need to get home to bathe the kids and thus return their tickets for re-sell. A re-sell ticket goes for £5 as opposed to the face value of £75. 

7.40pm Sit down inside the famed Centre Court and watch Andy Roddick beat some Romanian guy senseless in straight sets.

What you normally hope to see when you get to Wimbledon. Grass and sunshine.

What you normally see

Watching tennis 'Wimbledon' style

Henman Hill

Mr Miserable in full flight

''The world owes me...what I'm not sure...but it does''

Do you think this cat takes his job seriously? I bet his name is Henry.

Lens envy

Wimbledon to a T

9.10pm Exit Centre court. Get arm ripped off at Wimbledon Shop after joining last queue of the day to buy a souvenir and head home. Arriving at 10.10pm

Centre court at dusk

Amen

How much ??!?

With time as my greatest ally at the moment I thought it prudent to perhaps embark on a course of education that would hold me in good stead once I return to the 'real' world. If indeed that is ever to occur.

So today I contacted a good friend who had done an MBA at the London School of Business and sought her opinion on the quality of the teaching there. ''Top notch'' and ''outstanding'' were two sound bites that got me excited enough to look at the LSB continuing education programmes for business leaders and executives. I didn't want anything full time in case the bookmakers have it wrong and I do in fact land a job sometime in the near future. So instead I perused their short term courses. Ahhh ! A 2x2 week course on Leadership for mid-level managers caught my eye. After filling out an online form to receive the necessary paraphernalia I was all set to press ''submit'' when it dawned on me I hadn't noticed a costing for the course.  

3 clicks of the mouse later I had. 

£22,940

Yes.

£22,940 ( AUD$ 35,063)

It's been a while since I made myself laugh that much.

Sometimes I sit and think

And I wonder where all the birds go when it rains

Other times I just sit

To Deal or not to deal

A while back someone told me the seaside town of Deal was a charming channel viewing community and very picturesque. So on a blustery and wet English summers day I took a trip out there to see for myself, stopping off in Dover to catch a glimpse of the world famous white cliffs, before heading 8 miles further north to Deal.

A summers storm about to engulf the Dover ferry terminal

Aforementioned summers storm engulfing Dover ferry terminal. 

The beautifully contrasting white cliffs of Dover

The lonely walk of a beach fisherman

 

Lunch in a seaside cafe upon a table lacquered with newspaper stories and advertisments from 1978 bought back many memories. 

Today's price? £ 8.50

I've still got a crush on Olivia

Start at £16,000 today

I loved this cartoon for two reasons. I used to read these in the back of the  Port Moresby 'Post Courier'  every day and also because it about sums me up!

Tennis anyone?

I ventured to the Queens Club yesterday to watch some of the worlds finest tennis players smack it around on the grass courts there. Once called the Stella Artois it has now been rebranded as The Aegon and is one of the primary grass tournaments used by players to warm up for Wimbledon in a fortnight.

Set in the middle of West London, the Queens Club is an elite establishment over 125 years old and has the sort of membership that typifies the upper class of English society. This was reflected heavily in the attired patronage of the day. For women it was Chanel loafers, white jeans (clearly the fashion for 2011) Lauren shirts, a light jacket, jewelry dripping wrists, dyed hair and plenty of air kisses as they greeted each other. For the men it was loafers or boatshoes, brightly coloured linen trousers, offsetting coloured linen jacket (normally pale or cream in colour) a lauren stripey shirt, bushy eyebrows, hair filled ear lobes, and a panama hat. For the record I was wearing none of the aforementioned and having recently done some gardening was clear of all excessive bodily hair.

Several things struck me and none of them were a tennis ball.

1. At a minimum price of $85 for a centre court ticket watching a game or two of tennis is expensive. I paid £39 for my Court 1. Throw in a coffee for £5, sandwich for £7.50, packet of crisps for £3, chocolate fudge slice for £2.50 and a diet coke (who am I kidding? ) for £3 thats about £60 for a game or two of tennis. That's expensive.

2. Professional tennis players travel with a large entourage.

3. Professional tennis players all wax their legs and walk with a peculiar gait. Often pigeon toed.

4.  Professional tennis players throw the ball up very very high on their serve.

5. Professional tennis players hit the ball very very very hard

6. Professional tennis players play to the extremes of the court

7. Professional tennis players have bodily perspirational issues. Seriously. Who else needs to towel themselves down between every single point. I saw Del Potro towel himself down after receiving a serve, he then walked to the next serve, got aced (hence did nothing) and then request a towel again. My suggestion is change your deodorant!

8. There was something else I was going to mention but forgot...

Get rich quick...or b.

I was up in Northamptonshire yesterday shovelling compost amongst other chores for a mate in what the English term ''searing heat''. It was a mild 25 degrees centigrade. There is something attractive about physical labour. Putting the mind in neutral for 7 hours is deeply remedial and quite cathartic.

This....after 8 trips with

this....

becomes this....

.....leaving this.

As an aside I seem to have picked up a few friends over the last week or so as I took a perusal through my spam filter today.

What do Jabbar Muti, Ahemd Bello, Mr Ernest David, Mr Gogo, Thompson Yardrogo, Mr Robert Zuma, and Mr Dida Ernest have in common? Well, seemingly a lot.

This message might meet you in utmost surprise, However, Its just my urgent need for a foreign partner that made me to contact you for this transaction, I am Mr Jabbar Muti. Personal Assistant Manager of African Development Bank (ADB) Ouagadougou Burkina Faso. I want to inquire from you if you can handle this transaction for mutual benefits/life opportunity for you and me. The transaction is about seeking your consent to present you as the next of kin/ beneficiary of the US$5.6 Million Dollars,( Five Million, Six Hundred Thousand United State Dollars), and who is a customer to the bank where i work.

He was involved in the december 26th 2003 Benin plane crash in West Africa, with his family during their vacation journey. The Fund is currently in a suspense account awaiting claim, the bank made a public notice that they are ready to release this fund to any of his relatives abroad.

Therefore, by virtue of its nature as being utterly CONFIDENTIAL, top secret should be maintained please!,because i am still in the active service i do not need any form of implication especially now I'm in the verge of my retirement to endanger my career at last....blah blah blah blah.....